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By BRIAN A. HOWEY
NASHVILLE, Ind. – The final Bush years have become the nexus where the Oil Presidency, the loosened regulations on Wall Street, and the utter lack of an energy policy that took into account the national security implications became the 
perfect storm that howls as President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney prepare their exit.
There are now $7.5 billion in funded and unfunded securities. The Federal Reserve printing presses are roaring. 20 percent of Indiana’s economic sector – automobiles – is now threatened due to a lack of an energy policy and a federal mandate for the Big 3 to produce more energy efficient cars and trucks. Bush saying in his 2006 State of the Union speech that “America is addicted to oil” is nothing short of childlike naiveté.
There was to be great volatility with gas prices during this Oil Presidency, with the political price paid on both war and gas in November 2006 when Indiana became the only state to flip three Congressional seats from Republican to Democrat. By the end of the Bush presidency, gas prices rose to $4.19 a gallon, helping to fuel Barack Obama’s improbable victory last November.
That they tumbled to $1.40 a gallon this past month is indicative of the wild swings that are slamming the markets, business owners and consumers. Deflation is now a major worry and a sign of a truly sick economy. Many urged Bush to create an energy tax that would bring a $60 a barrel floor to oil prices so as not to undercut the ethanol and coal gasification facilities under construction in Indiana and elsewhere. It was another missed opportunity.
That the bottom dropped out of gas prices this fall comes at a time when huge commodity trading departments at Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers have disappeared and is also telling in the nexus of Wall Street and Big Oil.
I view the Oil Presidency through the prism of Indiana’s senior Congressional Republican – U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar. If there ever was a “Churchillian” voice, warning of the dangers ahead, it was Lugar. As the lines of supply and demand drew closer and closer, Lugar pleaded with Bush to create a coherent energy policy and insisted that neglecting to do so would be tantamount to compromising U.S. national security.
Lugar would say at a Purdue University Energy Summit in August 2006, “Neither American oil companies, nor American car companies have shown an inclination to dramatically transform their businesses in ways that will achieve the degree of change we need to address a national security emergency. Most importantly, the federal government is not treating energy vulnerability as a crisis, despite an increase in energy related proposals.”
He explained further, “Our failure to act will be all the more unconscionable given that success would bring not only relief from the geopolitical threats of energy-rich regimes, but also restorative economic benefits to our farmers, rural areas, automobile manufacturers, high technology industries, and many others.”
“We must be very clear that this is a political problem. We now have the financial resources, the industrial might, and the technological prowess to shift our economy away from oil dependence. What we are lacking is coordination and political will. We have made choices, as a society, which have given oil a near monopoly on American transportation. Now we must make a different choice in the interest of American national security and our economic future,” Lugar said.
Lugar would tell the Deloitte Energy conference in May 2007, “The president’s energy activities are barely registering in the American consciousness. In large part, this is because there is no energy campaign upon which he has visibly and repeatedly staked his reputation and legacy. With the possible exception of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there is nothing in the Bush domestic energy program that a well-informed American would identify with this administration.”
Osama bin Laden’s Sept. 11 attacks were aimed at destroying the American economy. The attacks caught the unprepared Bush administration by surprise. The U.S. and Western response was measured in billions of dollars, a near collapse of the airline industry and eventually the Detroit 3. Bin Laden’s stated goal was oil at $150 a barrel (it rose to $147 a barrel last summer) and the destruction of Western economies. Even as he hides in his Pakistani caves, it’s hard to argue that he has not come close to his goals.
While the $1.50 gallon gas is a relief to Hoosiers as the economy tanks, do not be lulled into complacency as we were after prices fell following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979. After each of those, the American economy went into a tailspin. Presidents Nixon and Carter warned then that we must achieve energy self-sufficiency.
Turning this corner to develop advanced battery technology, cutting edge fuel efficient cars, and upgrading the electrical grid with wind, solar and natural gas are as important to our future today as the Manhattan Project was for America in 1942. In those days, the arsenal of democracy was proudly forged in the auto and steel plants of Detroit, Gary, Anderson and Muncie.
In the coming months and years, it must take place in Barack Obama’s Oval Office and in the labs of Indiana companies like EnerDel.
Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com
Tags: Barack Obama, Brian A. Howey, Dick Lugar, George W. Bush. Dick Cheney
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This entry was written by and posted on January 5, 2009 at 11:17 am and filed under Brian Howey Column. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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